S-OFF

The root/ROM community in Android may not be as big as it once was, but there are still hardcore enthusiasts out there who refuse to buy any phone unless its software is modifiable. For those of you, there's good news - SunShine now supports S-OFF for HTC's latest flagship, the U11.

New smartphones are rolling off the line pretty regularly, and that means the tools we use to work with them have to update, too. Last month, Sunshine v3.0 emerged with support for an extensive collection of HTC and Motorola handsets, and now an update to v3.1 is about to build on that list. With the latest release, Justin Case and Beaups have added support for almost every variant of the HTC One M9, except Verizon's. Expanded compatibility isn't the only new treat for users, Sunshine has also added the capability to automatically SIM unlock most of the GSM-based phones manufactured by HTC.

If you're going to do any serious modding on your Android smartphone, your first step is going to be unlocking the bootloader. This is a simple procedure on Nexus devices and a few other handsets, but many of the top OEMs have added security measures to prevent regular users from mucking about with their stock software. For these devices, there's a tool called Sunshine by recognized developers Justin Case (jcase), beaups, and friends. Version 3.0 just came out, and it can unlock the bootloader and acquire S-Off with almost every modern Motorola and HTC smartphone on the market.

There are a few ways to get root access on HTC's new lineup of smartphones, but root only gets you so far. If you really want to hack around, you'll want an unlocked bootloader and s-off. That's what you get with the new SunShine tool from Justin Case, Beaups, and associates. This time, however, the free lunch is over.

There's nothing like a completely open device if you really want to tweak things and flash all sorts of ill-advised software. HTC isn't going to make it easy, though. Getting s-off is necessary to do all that fun stuff, and now the recently released Firewater tool has been updated with support for the M8.

Like most OEMs, HTC likes to lock down the devices it sells to the general public, but maybe you like a little more freedom. That means an exploit is required to get s-off status. The new Firewater S-Off tool can manage that for any (or at least very nearly any) HTC device, even newer HTC One phones.

The tool comes courtesy of developers beaups and fuses, and it's completely free for personal use. Just download the files and get to work. The website has a full walkthrough of the process. There are some prerequisites that need to be taken care of first, though.

Looking to mod your Verizon HTC One in every way imaginable? You're going to need S-OFF, and it looks like you won't be waiting long. Recognized XDA Developer beaups has posted a picture showing the Verizon device's bootloader indicating S-OFF.

Everyone likely to read this knows that root can unlock a lot of doors for Android modding, and an unlocked bootloader opens even more. But for HTC phones, S-OFF is the ultimate in control, allowing users essentially unlimited access to every piece of code on the device. The Revolutionary dev team has released a new S-OFF method for the HTC One. You may remember these guys from exploits on most of the major HTC phones from 2011 and earlier.

S-OFF refers to a signature check and write access security in locked HTC phones. When it's on, the phone checks for signatures on certain portions of the software - the radio, recovery, certain parts of the system drive, and a few others - and keeps the user from writing to restricted areas.

So, you want S-Off on your One X/L, or Droid DNA? Done and done. Thanks to a crafty new "hack" by jcase and beaups, S-Off can easily be yours. As always, however there are a few pre-requisites, as well as some caveats to be aware of.

Firstly, you must have working adb and fastboot. If you don't know what that is, a quick Google search can answer it, and tell you how to get it. Your device must also be rooted and have SuperCID, no exceptions. This is requisite.

Devs work hard on exploits like this, and they risk bricking their own devices (or those of testers) in order to make it happen.

Over the past year or so, HTC devices have become notoriously more difficult to root/mod/S-Off than the devices of yesteryear. When one series of devices gets cracked, the next generation released by HTC has historically been drastically more difficult to crack.

This has been the case for some of the more recent HTC devices; namely the Amaze, Rezound, Sensation/XE, Vivid/Raider/Velocity, And MyTouch 4G Slide. Up until now, a few of those devices have never even received S-Off status. Now, though, thanks to a new method called JuopunutBear by the UnlimitedTeam, all of the aforementioned phones can become S-Off.